


Parallel, Counter

by tieria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Disclaimer: Spectre's thoughts on Aoi are not mine, Episode 36, M/M, Technically it's gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-08 22:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13468224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: The boy who calls himselfSpectrelike a badge of honor for his misery is a liar.Fujiki Yusaku doesn’t realize this, at first- because all the words he speaks are true.





	Parallel, Counter

**Author's Note:**

> help

There are things that Spectre understands with a clarity that startles those who meet him unprepared. Unnerves them, even. But such a thing has never bothered Spectre, not when they can be of use. 

One of them is how to cut to the heart of people, to tear away the finery adorned over old wounds whose scabs still bleed with the force their owner scratches at them. Blue Angel- that Zaizen Aoi- was pathetically transparent in that regard. Loneliness? Abandonment? How arrogant to assume she could save someone when she’d yet to experience the true depths of the affliction. 

It’s almost disappointing when Playmaker stands before him and Spectre finds his ideals just as shallow- but it is, after all, a game where he holds all the cards. To be surprised is to be outmatched, and to be outmatched is a failure he simply cannot accept.

So when he speaks his story, the lines of it are chosen carefully, composed- not rehearsed, but clawing enough that they could be. And Playmaker reels with them. He buries it behind resolve, prompted by the Ignis- but Spectre has seen enough.

It is… a pity, perhaps, that Playmaker has chosen to put his faith in such ruinous hatred. It blunts his skill and dulls him down to mediocrity, a parody of potential that has him speaking the same words as the idol who placed herself in a narrative and had the gall to preach understanding in false equivalencies.

If Playmaker too had met Revolver, if Playmaker could admit to himself the consequences of his actions...

It’s a thought of fancy, not reality. Spectre is not one to indulge. Instead he allows his figurative trap card to take center stage, and the unbridled honesty in those wide green eyes only makes the truths that much easier to find.

Over and counter, parallel and pull.  _ What words can I say to you _ , he thinks,  _ to make you realize every step you’ve taken until now has been wrong? _

They are spoken with derision, those words of weakness. Human kindness is a virtue to all but those pretending that they’ve driven those things cleanly from the hollows of their heart.

Playmaker won’t like them, of course. But they are the truth, completely and utterly. If he can’t stand to hear his own nature turned against him thorn-sharp, then he was never going to be a worthy opponent at all- not for him, and least of all Revolver.

 

(In the end, he can’t. And Spectre can only laugh at the quiet turn of his voice, at the Ignis’ poorly disguised panic- a pair of open books, the pair of them. He’s never held any doubt that this would be the result. For Playmaker is born of a parallel circuit- revenge and justice, equal parts through which his actions derive. If one is compromised, then the other will propel him forth. 

But that’s a lie.

One that Playmaker tells himself, one that he believes so thoroughly that for a moment at the start of it all, even Spectre thought it to be the truth. But it’s a lie nonetheless.

Playmaker cannot chase revenge without clinging to his misguided justice, cannot uphold personal justice without fostering a craving for revenge.

A series circuit; those consecutive summons of which Playmaker seems oh-so-fond. 

If he can break just one, then the other will follow, and the force that is his resolve will burn itself out without so much as a fight.

Very well-

Spectre smiles, seizes the opportunity born of hesitation, and plays his final ace.)

* * *

The one thing that Yusaku does understand- immediately and completely - is that Spectre is a terrible actor. He is theatrical, terribly patronizing, and possesses a fondness for over-exaggeration even worse than Ai’s. None of that makes him any good at disguising his traps.

Then again, thinks Yusaku in the heat of the moment, still trying to reconcile the revelation that to some- to at least  _ one _ , there had been a  _ choice _ \- he’s likely not trying for subtlety at all. Attacking is not the only way to win a duel, but it’s certainly the most sure. If he wants to create an opening, he has no other options. Yusaku presses forth, thinking still that Spectre could fill a stage with the way he revels in the fruits his own misery has born him. 

So when a single lie slips through the cracks of his performance, Yusaku in his still-wavering sights doesn’t see it for what it is.

With every card that’s played, every effect and every loop and every chain does it repeat; a falsehood of actions rather than words. Clawing, healing, spitting venom and softly repairing. It’s infuriating, boils through him in a way different from his blind rage at Revolver, whips through him unlike the electric memory of childhood cruelties.

In the moment, he tells himself it’s because duels- fair duels, those without gimmicks or disappearing cards- aren’t supposed to be pulled so easily from his control. While he’s no stranger for biding his time until the final draw, he hasn’t been forced to immediately play on the defensive since-

Since...

Under and around, a perpendicular push. Data spilling red like blood that won’t be shed. In the wake of crafty cowardice, he’s certain he knows  _ exactly _ why. The words he can’t say in refutation burn bitter in the back of his throat, and his fingers itch for the rush of the wind to strike the swirling petals from the air- to clear the blurry skies obscuring the path to victory.

One chance. A singular path forwards on this crumbling bridge. His chance to step forth has not yet come and gone.

_ Hasn’t it? _ glowers Spectre from the other side of the field, as if he can read through Yusaku to the bone. 

Yusaku glances back over at their captive audience, thinking of Blue Angel and the determination set into her smile during their last exchange. He can feel the camera lens as it skims over his back, though if there’s words to accompany it, Yusaku can’t hear over the slow hiss of vanishing data. Still, he knows-  _ Not yet. _

 

(But the deepest truth, the root of it all, is something that Yusaku doesn’t realize until later. 

In the dramatics of his actions, in the silences between his words, the sentiments form themselves into a question, spoken in Yusaku’s thoughts with Spectre’s voice.

_ Could we have ended up the same, you and I? _

_ No, _ snarls Yusaku back at it.  _ Never _ .

And he’s sure of it. Hanoi could tell him that Ai is set to end the world in its entirety and it wouldn’t change his resolve. There are some sins that can’t be forgiven, not by angels nor demons nor AIs nor men.

But the thought lingers, persists. One word, haunting him like Spectre’s curse.  _ If _ . Just if, just for the sake of thinking it through-

If Spectre hadn’t met Revolver, all those years ago-

If Yusaku had been able to figure out the words to make him  _ realize _ before the end, then-

It wouldn’t have made a difference.

Spectre hadn’t wanted to be saved by a foreign kindness. Not when it had been his choice.)


End file.
